Show Photo Tips

Show photos are EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. Our marketing guru, Deb Pickman, recommends that if you spend money on only one thing in your show, make it a good photo! A photo is what will draw people in to read your description, and can also help get press coverage. Get a great photo, get it early. It’s more important to have a great photo than it is to have an accurate one (ie, all of the cast members). Use the one photo you pick on your postcard, your poster, for the Fringe program, and to send out to the press. Put all your eggs in one basket, and make sure it’s a really good basket.

These are the main submission guidelines for your photos:

The photo must be high resolution (300 dpi, or dots per inch)

The photo must be 5×5 inches

The photo must be in jpeg format

The photo MUST NOT contain text.

If it’s the wrong size, your photo may appear pixelated. If it’s not the right aspect ratio, we’ll crop it. Since we have 100 others to do, we probably won’t even really look at it when we crop it, so you might end up with someone’s head cropped out of the image. If it’s not in JPG format, there might be a blank square where your image should be. Moral of the story: submit the right size, and it goes in the program guide untouched.

Please send us your image in colour and we will convert it to black and white as needed.

When taking your publicity photo, keep in mind that it will not be large when it’s used in print or on the Web. The program has very limited space and the average size of show photos is about one inch square.

That means there is absolutely no room for detail. Avoid background action and shadows. Avoid dead space between people (subjects should never be more than about 12 inches from each other when you’re taking the photo). Keep the photo square; avoid photos that are very horizontal (several people standing in a line) or very vertical (a full-length body shot). Focus on capturing only one or two highly expressive faces. (You get extra points for sharp contrast.)

The Fringe will accept photos and drawings with the above specifications for your publicity graphics, but we strongly recommend photos. Keep in mind that it is very, very, very unlikely any of the local newspapers or magazines will print your illustration if they can pick from dozens of photos from other Fringe Artists. If you use an illustration, make sure it looks okay in colour and grayscale and that lines are distinct (high contrast).